Formal equivalence

Formal equivalence is a translation approach which attempts to retain the language forms of the original as much as possible in the translation, regardless of whether or not they are the most natural way to express the original meaning. When people speak of some versions of the Bible being literal, they are referring to ones which have been translated with a formal equivalence translation approach.

Formal equivalence translation is essentially the same as word-for-word translation. Word-for-word translation is a lay term, while formal equivalence translation is a technical term.

Although formal equivalence translations have some weakness in terms of readability, they are useful for helping one understand how meaning was expressed in the original text. They can help us see the beauty of original idioms, rhetorical patterns, such as Biblical Hebrew poetic parallelism, and how individual authors used certain vocabulary terms uniquely. It is not so easy to appreciate these factors from reading idiomatic translations, because these factors are related to form and idiomatic translations are willing to lose original form to maximize preservation and understandability of source text original meaning.